Devan S.

I have 2 non-fishing trips coming up that I at least plan to drag along a fly rod for. Any help/tips ideas someone can give would be greatly appreciated. Trip one is a quick Friday through Monday trip the first week of August to Destin/Ft. Walton with the family. My only plan currently is to take my 9wt and strip clousers through the surf early in the mornings. I wont have a ton of time but nearly every potential species I catch will be "new" to me. Anyone have any tips/tricks? I assume ladyfish is my most likely target. The second trip I have a bit more flexibility and a target during mid-August. Work will see me heading to San Antonio and then a drive to Eagle Pass and crossing the border daily for work. I will have time to burn Monday after landing in San Antonio and plan on chasing Rio Cichlids before driving to Eagle Pass. This is a trip I have made multiple times but never drug a fly rod along( I suspect Ill make many more trips). I am hoping to maybe go back in winter when I can chase some trout on the Guadalupe just to check the state off for trout. Guadalupe bass seems intriguing as well as Redbreast sunfish. All should be in the area but I haven't done a bunch of research yet. Any tips or locations someone might target or avoid? Any other species to target?

The article I read on Crooked river said something like 5-8,000 trout per mile, and 30-40,000 whitefish per mile. It referenced locals who blamed the whitefish for a decline in trout and they throw them on the bank. Said some people target them and catch easy 100/day. Said they also get up to 2-4lbs. no clue.....we spent the better part of 4 hours there without catching one unless they look like trout. I'm silently hoping at Pyramid lake or Eagle lake part 2, I can catch a Tui Chub.

For me: I had 4 fish/states off the western native trout challenge. Originally I had planned on UT/WY/MT/ID. However it ended up with WA/CA/ID/OR no slams per se but state complete and fish caught. I also hoped for 2 more Arkansas Master Anglers. I caught a white bass at Beaver TW that went 3.54lbs which was master angler. I caught a crappie that went 2.36 which is dangerously close. Ill take 1 of 2 at the midway point.

Now that we are home here are my post trip feelings. Overall it was a good trip. Wayyyyy too many miles. I think we were nearing 23-2400 miles from Wednesday till Monday. Far more driving than fishing. Outside of Bulls it was 1-3 fish per stop. This is the first big miss on a species trip but it works out in the end I think. It was aggressive but if I would have just combined pyramid lake and eagle lake to begin with I would have likely never got McCloud river and Goose lake redbands. Oregon feels huge and empty. Portland is literally a cess pool of homeless camps. If I had to do over again I might fly into say Redmond, Bend, or Eugene and stay in that general vicinity. I feel like we fished Washington but also feel there is more there to explore especially with Puget sound and the peninsula. Idaho is the same way....I may go back someday to "chase" bulls there but it sounds like Canada is really the place to go so who knows. From a species standpoint the only thing that stands out is the bulls. Coastals and the redbands check a box but honestly I can get that similar fix elsewhere. Bulls-So incredibly aggressive. That one pool yielded 5-6 bulls to hand and multiple times we had chasers slashing 3/4 times at our lures. Toss right back in and they kept going even with us standing right there in the water and totally visible. Big line too 6-8lb test so not line shy in the least. The Bull @Prifish caught at the Met chased me casting and him prior to finally hooking up. We didn't jack with getting good pictures and other than my bull at the Met our Bull pictures don't show the fish well. Its unfortunate but really no regrets there. Its the memory that counts. I would have really liked to fish our first location for Bulls more but it was just too hot. Its definitely the kind of place you could spend multiple days packing around or as I have seen on some blogs pack in and float out. Another note: I didn't see a single firework tent out west.

The best part is we still found bulls. and even a nice redband.

Final day-Big water, Bulls, and booze My original plan was the Metolius river for bulls but the more I read the more I grew wary. Reports of fishless days, fickle fish, and lots of people made us search out other locations. However I was still interested in trying and as time and luck would work out we had a chance. We chose to fish the lower section so we rigged up jerkbaits and took off on the river side trail. Right away we noted big, fast, deep water. Really glad we didn't need this and made it much more enjoyable. Right away I had a nice follow and first deep slow pool had a nice bull hunkered down he wasn't interest in anything we had to offer him.

Our second to last day finished up here. Rumor has it that anyone can catch fish here. We did so I believe it. Nothing of size, small redbands. The water is much murkier than we are use too. The trout were rising but they wouldn't hit larger caddis flies. We had to downsize significantly and realistical we don't have a lot of small flies. We also caught fish on midges under a bobber. This area is really a nice place and if I was going to travel back to Oregon I'd use sisters as a home base and stay within a couple hours of there. Lots of access and camping right on the river here. My makeshift wading boots had a blowout here. Thankfully near the end of our time fishing. For @Ham Google says crooked river is full of mountain whitefish. Google also says they are easy and some would say a nuisance fish. We found the exact opposite. We stayed longer here in hopes of finding some. We had planned on stopping into the fly shop to get a better idea of the how, where, and what but they were closed so onto our next stop.

The hike out was rough. We had water but by midday it was hot. The area is burn scar and offers very little shade. Once we got cooled off, we formulated a new plan. If we hadn't caught bulls we would have gone up river but all the access involves good hikes again in the heat. Just didn't seem nearly as fun. Therefore we decided to head to Idaho and chase native redbands in the Boise National Forest. Again pretty small creek and really pocket water style fishing. Lots of dipping and cussing bushes. Once we both caught fish we raced back across towards Sisters, Or in search of more fishing and less hiking and driving.

The cheeseburgers are much better than my normal meals for these kinds or trips.

Looking upstream into the hole we fished. Our first cast at the tail yielded a small bull that pulled off prior to netting. We moved up to the end of the run into head of the pool abd found them. First cast was a hookup with multiple chasers. 1 good chaser that would ultimately make a mistake on the next cast. note: these fish were all out of the water less than 5 seconds. We used spinning rods with heavy line and kept them in the net while unhooking. We did everything possible to minimize handling issues while still snapping a picture. We probably each caught 3-4 bulls here and @Prifish caught a nice redband. Did I mention it was hot? Things went so well we celebrated with herd bull cheeseburgers at the Wenaha Bar and Grill that were 5 star before deciding our next move.

View from the trail looking at the river. The cub was spotted on river Bank on left side if picture. Right side is the bushwack berry patch.

Day 4-Bears, Bulls, and Burgers We arrived at our next stop late into the night. Didn't even setup camp. Slept in the car....this stop is way, way, way out in the middle of nowhere. Lots of slow dirt road and elevation drop to get here. Good thing it's dark and we can't see. We packed up for a full, hot day and head off at daylight. No intent to camp; day hike in, fish, and pack out. Did I mention the 95 degree forecast high? Rumor has it this place is rattlesnake and bear paradise. No rattlesnakes, although I could easily see it being a snake pit. We stopped and fished a hole or two going in. Caught some redbands but yet to see a bull. Along the ridge, we spot THE PERFECT HOLE. getting there proved to be a nice bushwack through a berry patch downhill. We had been hoot'n'hollering to spook bears but got complacent. We spooked something big in the patch. We never saw it, assumed it was maybe an elk at the time. Got down and started rigging up to fish. As we're about to cross the river I see the worlds largest groundhog on the other side. @Prifish confirms it is in fact a bear cub. We spook it off. Cross the river to get to THE PERFECT SPOT that's how good it looked

Day 3- Long roads and another Redband After failing at Eagle lake, we headed North to trek across the Oregon desert to the far Northeast part of Oregon. Along the Oregon/California is a another California redband. Goose lake is dry per Google maps. I can tell you it has water in it now. Lassen Creek was the target at the campground. Thought to head up stream. Ran into some gentleman from Washington doing a redband run trying to bag them all. We took off upstream. Only to run into a nice herd of red angus cows. We just kept lightly pushing them upstream in front of us. Honestly we did it. They are fish, pretty and checked a box and moving on. Lots of lonely desert miles between here and the next stop. As you may recall sometime back, I asked for places for Oregon Bulls besides the Metolius. Boy did I get a dandy.

Day 2/3 continued- Eagle Lake Pump the brakes. The train was just getting rolling when it ran off the tracks. That's a slight exaggeration. I had concerns. Eagle lake is just a big bath tub. It's a one stop shop. No other spot to catch Eagle lake rainbows. Gotta have em. We brought jigs. Figured long casts for deeper fish. I had planned we would rent a boat at the marina. 2 weeks prior to leaving I learned the marina wasn't renting boats and the trout had moved out to deeper water. We fished until dark. Ran into a guide at the boat ramp. He said even boats were having a tough time. Said we should get there at daylight. We did. Fished until 9am Friday with 1 single bite and one fish seen. Just could not get out deep enough. We considered buying pool floats to get out there. Instead we decided to move onto our real targets. The good news is Eagle lake is close to Reno, NV which is also close to another lake I want to fish..... Did I mention it's hot out here? Not alot of shade as you can tell.

Day 2- California concerns Day 2 starts with 4 hours if driving. Warning: If flying across the country to drive 2100 miles isn't for you then look away now. At the last minute, I found we would be dangerously close to the native range of McCloud river redbands with a bit of detour on the way to Eagle Lake. No major desire to get the California Hertiage Trout Challenge but considering we need 4 species for the Western Native Challenge we had a chance at 2 additional additions along the route. On the east side of Mt Shasta is mutlple small streams. All headwaters feeding upper McCloud river. Several streams are closed to fishing but there is a stream aptly named for its residents. A small stream with lots of brush but at the campground, there was a short section open with plenty of fish eager to feed. The best part was this stop was short. Maybe 2 hour drive out of our way. It look us longer to get rigged up than catch fish. We didn't see any other people around and had a couple mule deer visiting us at the campground.

Day 1-flights and drive time. The plan for day 1 on this trip was mostly travel. Wheels up from Springfield @ 6am makes for an early start from Cassville. Goal was to arrive into Portland and drive north to Washington. My Google searching indicated July wasn't the best time for sea run coastals and I had concerns we would struggle to stumble into fish in Puget Sound. It just doesn't fit our way of fishing. I got some tips from a Washington resident off a native Facebook group directing me to a small stream with resident coastals. Like literally gave me GPS coordinates. His information was a slam dunk. We each caught multiple 6-8" coastals. Wheels up and headed south for Northern California.

Pictures don't do pure redbands justice.

Quick update while we drive from Boise back to central Oregon for our last day and a little more relaxing. We have thus far fished Washington, Oregon, California, and Idaho. The Idaho wasn't planned for but we had a spare day and took it. We have missed 1 of our target species. We fished hard at Eagle lake but just could not remotely get close enough to where the fish were. We're closing in on 2000 miles driving with a bit still to go. More to come....

Some additional information.... McCloud River Redband We actually may catch instead O. mykiss calisulat vs. O. mykiss stonei based on where we plan to fish. New naming happened back in March 23 but at a high level still is a McCloud River Redbands. I don't plan on counting gills and scales so we are upstream of the falls and it is what it is. Eagle Lake Rainbow-This is a must have for the broader Western Native Challenge and is the one that has me personally most concern with getting stuck. Eagle Lake is big and we are going to be shore bound. My research indicates this is the most difficult time of year to be shore bound and catch fish. Really there is no backup here either. My current information says boats are not rentable at this time. Great Basin Redband-Should be able to pick this up while passing through Northern CA. Specifically looking at Goose Lake Redbands. This would set us up for completion of the California Heritage Trout challenge at a later date. It'll also break up a drive a bit without a lot of work. One of those when in Rome deals. Bull Trout-This is what the trip is really all about. Although we have a few days before we get to focus on it. Columba River Redband-This is really just something we will likely catch in the process of Bull Trout. If things go according to plan or better than plan and we have time we might push a little farther East and bag another state. Right now the firm commitment is Washington Coastals, California Eagle Lake Rainbows, and Oregon Bulls. We miss any of those and we will be re-shuffling the deck for later trips.

Leaving tomorrow.